Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/747

 UNITED STATES V. BUNTIN. 736 �ancewith the law; but, notwithstanding, ignorance of the lawis not a valid def ence, and if you shall find that he excluded the prosecuting witness from the school, under color of the state statute, and on aqcount of his color, — these being the three elements constituting the crime with which he stands charged, — it will be your duty to und him guilty, unless you shall find for defendant, as has been pre- vjously stated, on the question of fact to which your attention will now be directed. �The negro, under the national constitution and laws, is invested with precisely the same rights that are possesijed by the white race, and subject to the same duties, obligations, and liabilities. The school which defendant was teaching' was a public school, established and maintained with public money, to which every child, whether white or black, of that school district, had the right to go for instruc- tion, unless some other school of substantially equal merit had been provided for them. It is, however, insisted that such provision had been made for the prosecuting witness. That there was such a school in that district for the education of colored children is conceded. The supreme court of the state has held that such a classification of the two races is within the constitutional discretion of the legislature, and that the separate education of the whites and blacks in accord- ance with the terms of the law is no wrong to either.* I concur in and adopt this decision as a correct exposition of the constitution, and instruct you that if there was such a school in the district for the education of colored children, afiording substantially the same edu- cational advantages as were afforded by the school from which the prosecuting witness was excluded, and reasonably accessible, it was his duty to have gone there, and the defendant did him no wrong in the exclusion complained of. But if, as has been contended, you shall find that said colored school was so remote from the prosecuting witness' residence that he could not attend it without going an un- reasonable and oppressive distance; that he was thus placed at a material disadvantage with his white neighbors; that the school did not ofier substantially the same facilities and educational advantages that were oiiered in the school established for the white children, and from which he had been excluded, — then and in that event he was entitled to admission in said last-named school, and his exclusion therefrom was a deniai and a deprivation of his constitutional right. How the facts are it is your province to decide. Upon your finding �*State V. MeCann, 21 Ohio St. 198.— [Rep ��� �